


Untitled

by lunarwaves



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, Urban Fantasy, Vampires, Zutara Week 2020, anyway vampires, they fight but it's not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:08:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarwaves/pseuds/lunarwaves
Summary: Vampire hunter Katara just wants to get the bounty placed on Zuko's head-Zutara Week Day 5: Hesitancy
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35
Collections: steambending





	Untitled

She sees him in a dark corner of the bar, with skin so pale it seems to glow and a worn black leather jacket. A casual observer may not have noticed him, with the way he seemed to otherwise melt into his booth but for her, his appearance practically screamed ‘vampire’.

Katara ran over the details of the mission in her head, before taking a deep breath and approaching him. A famed vampire hunter named Ozai had put out a hit on a vampire named Zuko. He would have killed Zuko himself, but apparently the being had gone into hiding and he was more focused on running his own vampire hunting organization. While she wasn’t a part of it, the bounty on Zuko’s head was a whopping 2 million dollars, and the promise of that much money prompted her to attempt finishing the job.

She patted at the stake and squirt gun filled with holy water in her jacket sleeves before approaching the man in the bar and tapping at the seat across from him. “Hey. Can I sit here?”

He looks at her suspiciously, golden eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Katara’s smile falters for a bit before she responds. “I want to, of course!”

The vampire continues to look at her before turning away and shrugging. She takes this as an invitation and slides into the seat across from him at the booth.

“I’m Catherine,” she ventures.

The man grunts in acknowledgement and glares at the surface of the table, sticky with the residue of spilled drinks and crumbs.

“Do you have a name?” Katara asks again, after a beat of silence.

“No.” His response is short and low, almost unintelligible in contrast to the background noise of glasses clinking and people chattering.

Katara felt a sudden rush of frustration and clenched her teeth. Usually vampires were easy to wheedle information out of and talk to, the supernatural creatures always looking to seduce and charm.

But this one wasn’t even trying to do so.

“Okay… can I just call you Lee then?” she asks. The name was generic enough to belong to anyone, especially in this part of the city.

“Whatever.” He looks at her for a second from under stupidly thick eyelashes before flicking his gaze away once more.

“Lee, then. I’d like to find a vampire coven around here. Maybe you know about one?”

She saw no reason to beat around the bush- maybe Lee’s bluntness would prove to be advantageous, despite his unresponsiveness.His posture stiffens, his former slouch completely gone.

“I don’t know anything about those.” While his voice was disinterested before, now it is absolutely frigid, simply daring her to ask more questions.

Katara smiles sweetly, tucking her fingers around the handle of her squirt gun, filled with holy water from a nearby church. “Are you sure?”

The vampire across from her stares deeply into her eyes, his own flashing red for a moment. “Yes.”

This time she full-on smirks. “You can’t compel me. I’m immune.”

Lee lets out a curse under his breath and slumps back into his seat. “Of course you are.”

“No one knows why, really,” Katara says conversationally. “My family thinks it’s genetic.”

The vampire rolls his eyes. “Is Catherine even your real name?”

Despite being even more suspicious of her than before, Lee was finally speaking in more than monosyllabic grunts. He’s intrigued, she realizes, and decides to press that to her advantage.

“Frankly, that’s none of your business. I’m actually looking for someone.”

“Who?”

Katara pauses, determining whether or not to tell him. Ozai had mentioned that Zuko was a loner, never associating with any covens even before he went into hiding. What were the odds Lee knew him? And what were the chances he was willing to tell Katara what he knew?

She chews on her lip, fidgeting with her sleeves. “Do you know a vampire named Zuko by any chance?”

Lee’s gold eyes flash at the name, but his expression is otherwise unchanged. “No,” he says shortly, once again clamming up. He crosses his arms and looks at her coldly. “I think you should go.”

“What?” Katara replies, startled. “No, I want to know what you-”

“Careful, Catherine.” Lee warns.

Katara shudders and glares at him, debating whether or not it would be worth attacking him in front of everyone. “Fine,” she snaps before hastily getting up and shoving her way out of the bar.

***

It was too easy to get ahold of Lee.

After unceremoniously being told to leave, Katara decided to simply wait.

She stood in an alleyway behind the bar, the stench of garbage lightly permeating the air and her fingers and nose almost numb to the cold.

Katara didn’t know how long she had been waiting. One hour? Two? Either way, it was around 3 AM when Lee finally came out of the bar, haloed by the golden glow of a street lamp. 

A taxi whizzes by as she pulls Lee into the alleyway, joints aching slightly from cold and disuse.

“What the hell?” he hisses, fangs extended. Katara slams him bodily against the wall, one hand keeping his arms behind him and the tip of her stake poised over where his heart should be.

“You’re not telling me something,” she says bluntly, the time for being tactful and dancing around what she wanted to know long gone.

“Why would I?” He bucks against her grip, and Katara digs the stake in a bit further, almost breaking the skin.

“Tell me what you know about Zuko,” she pants.

“No.”

And then Katara’s flying to the floor, her head hitting the concrete with a crack as Lee twists and pushes her. _Cold_ she thinks dully, as his knees squeeze her sides and he brings a fist up to punch.

Thinking on instinct, she bucks her hips up, causing him to lose balance as she whips out her squirt gun and shoots him with a stream of holy water. The stake has skittered away somewhere, hit by one of their flailing limbs, and she has no time to think as she leaps back.

The water hits just under his left eye, causing a sizzling sound and a low growl to emerge from Lee’s throat.

He lunges for her once again, knocking the gun out of Katara’s grip and sending her careening into the opposite wall.

Once again, her head smacks against a hard surface and spots briefly appear in her vision. She blinks them away, trying to focus on the vampire in front of her. In her brief second of hesitation, Lee rips at her jacket, roughly separating the teeth of the zipper and gets closer, his cold breath wafting over her neck.

Katara thrashes against his grip, panicking. _I don’t want to die._ She was so stupid. She shouldn't have tried to do this on her own, shouldn’t have gotten cocky, shouldn’t have-

The frantic train of her thoughts slows as she realizes Lee isn’t draining her of her blood. Instead he is frowning, raising a cold finger to poke against the ink at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “You’re White Lotus?” he asks, surprised.

“What do you care?” she spits back, using Lee’s distraction to bat his arms away and push him back. Katara zeroes in on her squirt gun and goes to lunge for it as Lee shouts, “no wait!”

Despite herself, she turns to see him pulling aside his jacket and the collar of his shirt. “I’m with them too,” he says.

Katara’s eyes narrow and she walks closer to Lee, practically climbing him trying to get a good look at the tattoo in the same place as her own. Sure enough, it’s a simple ink of a white lotus pai sho tile, almost impossible to find for anyone who didn’t know it was there.

“No way,” she mumbles.

“Uh… I didn’t know you were… sorry…” His previous aggression completely gone, Lee awkwardly scratches at the back of his neck and turns his face away from hers.

“It’s not your fault,” Katara replies, finding it hard to move her tongue. “I thought I knew everyone in the organization.”

“I’m a recent member. I only joined after I was turned, with the help of my uncle.”

“Your uncle?” She asks curiously.

“You might know him as the Dragon of the West. Or Iroh?”

Katara feels frustrated, as though she is missing the single piece of a puzzle she has every ability to solve. “Wait, so if he’s your uncle…” And then it clicks. “Then you’re Zuko?!” 

“Yes…?” He sounds uncertain as she plows on.

“Your father put a hit out on you. He wants you gone,” she explains, feeling a twinge of pity at the sadness that crosses the vampire’s gaze. “I had no idea you were working with the White Lotus. I guess that explains how you disappeared so well. It took me forever to simply track you to this city.”

Zuko nods and sighs. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he’s trying to kill me. Everyone in my family is a vampire hunter and this is just… evidence of my failure.” He makes a vague gesture towards himself.

Katara vehemently shakes her head. “You didn’t fail. This job is risky. If anything, your father is the failure for wanting you dead.”

Zuko snorts, leaning heavily against an alley wall. “That’s basically what Uncle says, but I have no clue if he’s right.”

“He wouldn’t have let you join the White Lotus if he didn’t believe in you,” she responds confidently. “You know he always talks about you? About how amazing you are, and how you hate tea but drink it just for him.”

Katara sees the corner of Zuko’s mouth turn up in a smile. “I can’t believe you know that,” he mumbles bashfully.

They sit in silence for a moment, listening to the sounds of the city around them. A car rushes by, and the streetlight flickers.

“Well,” she says, speaking once again. “This changes things.”

Zuko raises an eyebrow at her. “I assume you’re not going to kill me now?”

“I do like money,” Katara conceded. “But my loyalty is to the White Lotus first. I didn’t believe their philosophy of vampire-human solidarity at one point, but I try my best to uphold it now. ”

The vampire next to her sighs. “I suppose. It’s hard for me to believe that, even now. My whole life, vampires have always been the enemy.”

“Same for me. One of them killed my mother, and it took me forever to get closure on that.”

“How’d you do it?”

Katara wearily picks up her squirt gun, lets her eyes roam the alleyway to find her stake. “I found and killed him,” she says as blandly as possible, pushing away the memory of glistening fangs and the red eyes of a vampire too far gone.

She can feel Zuko’s eyes on her as she finally spots the silver weapon, and she bends to pick it up. “He hurt people,” she justifies, starting to feel a little defensive. “This is my job. Sometimes I feel regret, but… what can I do?”

“You’re doing just fine.” 

Katara smiles at him for that, not the fake one she used at the bar earlier but a softer, real one. “Thanks Zuko.” She notices something at the corner of her eye, and turns to face the streaks of color starting to appear in the sky.

Suddenly her limbs feel heavy. She’s been out in the cold all night, and any adrenaline left from their encounter is starting to fade away. “It’s almost dawn,” Katara says.

Zuko tears his gaze away from her to look at the horizon. “We should go. Do you want to walk with me to headquarters?”

She shrugs, and goes to move out of the alleyway but Zuko stops her.

“Wait.”

He shrugs off his leather jacket and holds it out to Katara. She looks at him quizzically as he clears his throat and once again reaches up to scratch at his neck. “I ripped your jacket so… I don’t want you to get cold or anything.”

Zuko’s voice gets progressively softer until he awkwardly trails off, continuing to hold out the garment.

“Oh.” Katara finally registers that yes, she is cold. The wind seeps through even the thick shirt she’s wearing underneath her own ruined jacket and she lets out an involuntary shiver. “Yes, please. Thank you.”

She unzips the rest of her jacket and throws it to the side of the alleyway, among the rest of the garbage. Zuko’s jacket, while larger than her own, is comfortable and she wraps herself in it, tucking her weapons into the pockets.

They walk for a little bit before Katara breaks the silence between them. The quiet wasn’t tense like before- more tired and content. “My name’s not actually Catherine. I just use that so people don’t actually find out who I am.”

Zuko shrugs. “I figured.”

“It’s actually Katara.”

“Katara.” He sounds it out, the syllables disappearing into the slowly lightening sky. “That’s beautiful.”

**Author's Note:**

> complain about my writing, give me requests, or just say hi to me on [tumblr](https://avatar-the-last-jerkbender.tumblr.com/)


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